Barnet Football Club has returned to the Football League, topping the National League after narrowly missing out on promotion two years running. Could that success be matched off the field, as support grows for the club’s bid to return to its historic Underhill home?
It seemed a long shot when plans for a new stadium – on a Green Belt site – were first unveiled. But an initially unlikely coalition of fans and local amenity organisations, plus the potential impact of the government’s new “grey belt” policy look to be narrowing the odds ahead of a key council planning meeting, to possibly be held as soon as 10 June.
Barnet played its final game at Underhill, its home for more than a century, back in 2013. It went into exile in Harrow after clashing with the council over development plans and failing to find an alternative site. Now, owner Tony Kleanthous is proposing a new 7,000-seat stadium on council-owned playing fields just to the south of the old site.
The plan would secure Barnet FC’s future and benefit a community in which it has played a central role for generations, the club says. Development in the Green Belt has previously been determinedly resisted in the suburban borough, but a vigorous Bring Barnet Back campaign, independent from the club, is challenging that orthodoxy.
First to declare was the venerable Barnet Residents Association, concluding that the club “returning to the area and the facilities they offer would be of considerable value to the wider community and would outweigh the negative aspects of the application”.
There was “nothing intrinsically attractive” about the chosen site, they added. Existing facilities would remain, new landscaping and “enhanced biodiversity” would minimise the stadium’s impact, and there would be still be “sufficient green” for dog walking and “other recreational purposes”.
The influential Barnet Society, defender of the Green Belt since 1945, then added its qualified support: “We wholeheartedly support the principle of Barnet Football Club returning closer to its historic roots, and we can see some potential benefits for Chipping Barnet as well as the Club.”
The society does have reservations about loss of open space – which it said should be restored “if football use fails” – increased traffic, the need for the club to offer benefits to the wider community as well as to its fans, and the extent of the new stadium’s economic boost to the area.
But it shared the residents association’s opinion of the site’s current “limited” contribution to biodiversity, saying that an upgrade would be “at least as attractive” as the present playing fields. If its concerns were addressed, it concluded, “we would be pleased to support this application”.
Last week, local ward councillor Tim Roberts, first elected in 2014, signed up too. “The majority of Underhill residents that I speak with are in support of Barnet FC returning,” he said in a statement posted by the Bring Barnet Back campaign. “I used to walk my children down to the Underhill stadium for years to watch Barnet play…I am in support of Barnet FC playing their football in a new purpose-built stadium in Underhill.”
As Barnet’s planners ponder their recommendation, they will also be considering whether the proposed site now meets the government’s rules for defining “grey belt” as land, “previously developed” or not which does not “strongly contribute” to three of the five Green Belt purposes set out in national planning policy: to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas, prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another or preserve the setting and special character of historic towns.
If it does meet that definition, further planning policy hurdles remain. In particular, the scheme would need to show that there is a “demonstrable unmet need” for the type of development proposed, and that it would not “fundamentally undermine the purposes (taken together)” of the remaining Green Belt across the borough. Leaping those hurdles would make the scheme is no longer “inappropriate development” in the Green Belt and that “very special circumstances” would no longer required to justify approval.
How the new grey belt policy, yet to be tested in London, might affect the club’s proposals will be a matter for interpretation, by planners, lawyers, councillors and ultimately, perhaps, the planning inspectorate and the courts. And the club is still battling against tough opposition campaigning to save “valuable green space”. But off the field as well as on, there’s all to play for.
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What timing after the most successful season ever and having just been promoted back into the EFL after the most successful season ever. What better time to bring the club back ‘home’? The whole borough would benefit from having the team named after it back.
It’s not home though, the Chairman sold home and received a large amount of tax payers money for that. You don’t sell your home and then expect to be able to build in the back garden.
All this will benefit is a few pubs, takeaways and better shops, at the loss of a well liked and used park
What is really growing is the objections to the plans.
There are no special circumstances where a well used public recreation park should be handed over to a massive development.
The proposal makes the assumption that the land would be handed over at zero cost. The loss of green public amenity space is not mitigated in the slightest by a few trees and a pond on a flood risk area.
It will not be just a few shops etc which will benefit nor will the whole park be lost (an exaggeration if ever there was one). The beneficiaries will be the public of Barnet as a whole whose football club will at long last have returned home. Hasten the day!
If Barnet FC return to the borough of Barnet I wonder what will become of their current home The Hive? It’s an excellent stadium situated close to Canons Park Underground station, conveniently located for access on match days.
When a stadium was first mooted on this site many years ago it was intended for Wealdstone FC who had vacated their Lower Mead stadium in the heart of Harrow. The ‘stones, currently playing matches at Grosvenor Vale in Ruislip, are exploring the possibility of a new stadium close to the A40 in Hillingdon.
It would be good for football and the local communities associated with both clubs if they both relocated as close to their original homes as possible. Perhaps Charles Wright can investigate and report on whether Wealdstone FC would indeed be interested in moving to The Hive if Barnet move into their new Underhill?
It would be nice for the club to come back but building in the middle of a well used public park is ridiculous. The original proposal was located at the northern end which is hardly used and next to development of a similar height which I supported.
I don’t though support building on an existing green public park owned by the council is mad. The fact the stadium was relocated after the pre-app shows a game is being played here and I would not trust that everyone knows what it is they’re supporting.
As a local resident I’d say the plans are controversial with issues around loss of open space and access as well as anticipated traffic problems being raised.
That said, the way the plan is being put forward highlights just how disconnected local planning is and how out of line with residents’ experience. Less then 200 meters from the proposed stadium site is High Barnet Station, where TfL are promoting plans to build flats over the existing car park. Yet there is no linking the two plans – for example, proposals for pedestrian and bus access that take into account stadium footfall; necessary improvements to crossings and other elements that might mitigate the fall-out from the Stadium if implemented with a view to High Barnet Station being the designated “Gateway” to the facility.
I’m well aware that each planning proposal is a “stand alone” but from the perspective of local residents and general functionality, this is an absurdity, which Barnet Council seems to be simply ignoring for the moment, rather than intervening pre-emptively or even just promoting a discussion through an engagement tool such as Commonplace.